11:08 AM, May 14, 2012

David Edwards / U.S. Marshals Service

Detroit Free Press Staff

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David Edwards, a former Wayne County IT executive, pleaded guilty this morning to accepting a $13,000 bribe from a county contractor.

He agreed to cooperate with the federal government's probe of Wayne County corruption in return for a sentence of 12 to 18 months in federal prison.

Edwards will be the second person to plead guilty in the county's public corruption probe, but he is the first Wayne County official to do so.

Edwards had a plea hearing scheduled for 10:30 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy.

He resigned last month from his $110,000-a-year job in the department of technology and was charged with bribery on May 8 in an information filed in U.S. District Court.

“In 2009 and 2011, David Edwards knowingly and corruptly accepted $13,000 in cash from a private contractor intending to be rewarded in connection with his official duties regarding a business, transaction or series of transactions of Wayne County involving $5,000 or more,” the charging document said.

The contractor was not identified. The crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Edwards is the fifth person and fourth member of the Ficano administration to face federal corruption charges since an FBI probe emerged last fall in wake of a controversial $200,000 payment to the former top aide Turkia Awada Mullin.

Today’s plea hearing comes four days after Keith Griffin, a longtime friend of a former top aide to Ficano, pleaded guilty to a fraud charge involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper payments from a county health care program.

Griffin admitted to U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood that he was part of a scheme to defraud the county’s HealthChoice insurance program and a private company, and to kick back money to Michael Grundy, a former assistant county executive.

Grundy also has been charged in the alleged scheme, but has denied wrongdoing. His case is pending.

Griffin, who faces 2½ to 3½ years in prison at sentencing in August, also was ordered to pay $900,000 in restitution to HealthChoice and $350,000 to the unnamed company. He said he was cooperating with federal prosecutors investigating other corruption in county government.